A Family Standing Up For What They Believe In: A Walk on the Beach Part 3

On May 10th, I set out to Pass Christian to check out the last part of the beach in that area. I did not go out till about 5pm and ended at dark. The area covered was from the Pass Christian Harbor to about the end of the beach. I didn't get to cover the whole beach due to the sun going down. But what I saw was more then enough for one day.

This section of beach was tar free. I didn't see one sign of tar or the odd brown foam. There was even a lack of the black debris stuff that we found on the other beaches covered. But what I did find was death. This was probably the worst case of death along all the other beaches. 3 different turtles, a blow fish, many rays, a horseshoe crab, birds..it was overwhelming. This was a very short section of the beach, and the amount of animals were unbelievable. Another interesting thing was all the shells. Of course its normal to find shells on the beach, but the amount on this stretch of the beach was odd. In the days before this, we had covered over 10 miles of beach, and we saw very few shells, yet this part of the beach they were piled up everywhere. I'm only pointing this out as it seemed abnormal to me, and Eric and his father, who have both spent a lot of time on this section of beach, agreed with me. Again no pelicans, not one!

I want to talk about the Sea Turtles for a second. You will notice that the sea turtles are spray painted. IMMS is doing this to mark the ones they have counted. When a sea turtle is found they come out, spray paint it and then leave it there. They are not taking samples from these turtles. I want to say, that in my opinion this is about the worst tracking system I have ever heard. I do not understand how they could be sure that they are getting the correct count by spraying them and leaving them. I also do not understand why they are not taking the remains back to IMMS for proper disposal. But then, nothing IMMS does surprises me these days.